Aberavon (1st – 25 points) travel to St Helen’s to take on Swansea (4th – 10 points) in the Indigo Group Premiership Cup this Saturday, kick-off at 2:00 pm.
The All Whites have won 2 of their 6 games this season. They started their campaign with three straight losses as they went down at Llandovery (5 – 21), Aberavon (14 – 27) and at home to Carmarthen Quins (6 – 21). However, the St Helen’s outfit then had a huge bonus point home win over Llanelli (53 – 15) and another bonus point win away to Bridgend (35 – 17). In their last outing, they lost at home to Llandovery (17 – 45).
Looking at the Premiership Cup, in “attack”, Swansea have scored 21.7 points on average per game (ranked 3rd) and 2.7 tries (ranked 4th). In “defence” they have conceded 24.3 points on average per game (ranked 4th) and 3.3 tries (ranked 4th). Aberavon have scored 27.7 points per game (ranked 2nd) and 3.7 tries (ranked 2nd), and conceded 15.8 points (ranked 2nd) and 1.8 tries (ranked 1st).
Looking back to when the sides met at the ground in 2008-9, the Wizards narrowly won 29 – 27. The visitors led 17 – 8 at the interval after captain Ian Moore and David Pritchard scored tries. Jamie Davies converted both and kicked a penalty. For the Whites, Nicky Thomas scored a try and James Dixon kicked a penalty.
In the second half, Aberavon went into a 29 -13 lead with further tries scored by Richard Morris and Luke Hathaway. Davies converted George’s try. Lock Richard Kelly scored for the Whites.
Aberavon’s 16-point lead was whittled down when a fightback by the home side saw Kelly score his second try in the 79th minute with Thomas converting before Steffan Jones scored under the posts for replacement Damien Karuana to convert.
The Wizards team that day was: Paul Bamsey; Richard Carter, Luke Hathaway, Ashley Beck (rep Ricky Thomas), Steve Davies; Jamie Davies, David Pritchard; Neil White (rep Lloyd Howell), Marc Breeze (rep Brett Thomas), Paul Breeze (rep James Jones), Ian Moore (capt) (rep Nathan White), Andrew Fisher, Rory Gallagher (rep Darryl Thomas), Richard Morris, Chris Davies.
The referee for Saturday’s game is Jason Bessant, aided by John Darcy and Greg Morgan.